Black in the red on ‘Biggest Loser’

Finally, team black felt the pain of teams blue and red on The Biggest Loser, losing the weigh-in to red, with blue in the middle, and being forced to trim one from its herd. That turned out to be — no surprise — New York twin Jim, who had to be separated from brother Bill as a voting bloc. But though Jim left with a tearful farewell, those tears turned to cheers in the show’s ever-heartening postscript.

That’s because Jim, to his credit, stayed with the program while off the program at NBC. He went home and got even better, trimming 69 more pounds for a total of 123 off his original body weight. Now a fit 238, he’s achieved for himself, and thereby his family, a longer, healthier life. No $250,000 prize alone equals that, which is why The Biggest Loser not only has reality TV’s most meaningful contest winners, but also the biggest number of them.

Like others, Jim eventually may level out at a higher weight, but still be far below his opening number. If so, so be it. That’s still admirable — even applaudable — and not as good entertainment, but good living.

No, the process isn’t fun, flashy or glamorous. It’s not singing a song, cracking a joke or doing a dervish dance. It’s about applying yourself while making a huge choice. And that choice is to live.

2 Responses

I watch the biggest loser because I am inspired by their weight lose. However, if they want me to watch more of the program then I skip through with the tivo, they need to make a couple small changes.

1) Stop replaying the 30 seconds that happened before the commercial after the break. It is very annoying to have to watch the “fake drama” unfold twice.

2) Stop with the product placments!

3) No players should be allowed to state “this is just a game” as they vote off the best person. They should only be allowed to vote for two people. The person who had the worst weight loss this week, and the person who has had the over all worst weight loss. That would motivate these people to step up from the beginning. Right now, the slackers are knocking off the workers.

Many shows rely on quick recaps to segue and pad after commercial breaks. That’s not going away. Neither are product placements, for the very reason you cite: People use tivo to skip through ads, so programs are forced to weave ads into their content. If there were no ads, there would be no show. Think about it.

As for unfair votes off Loser teams, that’s been the weakest part of the show’s format, though, to be fair, it’s what shows like Survivor are all about. And with Loser, even those banished aren’t truly out of the game. As seen in postscripts, many succeed as much or even more on their own once they return home, having learned a thing or two while in the game. In this week’s case, it made no sense to allow twin brothers to remain a voting bloc, no matter how much weight they’d lost, and other variables also often play a hand beyond banishing the best player (Jerry, anyone?), especially when that could mean losing again at the next weigh-in. No, Loser’s format isn’t perfect, but that goes for any show. There’s still plenty about Loser that’s a winner.